My Dictionary

I have a desk
and although an image is impressed
on the back of my eyelids,
of what it was supposed to look like,
I settle.

Don’t confuse this for a lack of love
or enthusiasm.
I spend every waking hour
with my head turned down
to a pen in my hand,
a page in a journal on my desk.

But it’s a desk
and it’s desk-like.
That sensation of arms resting
on the surface and books
and pens stacked beside me.
I recall lines from each novel
and words I have to look up
in the dictionary. I keep it
beside my head when I sleep

for moments when I wake with the sound
of a word, uttered by my own voice
but sent from some dusty box
stored in the attic of my mind.
I’d seen it more than a thousand times
but right now I can’t sleep,
I don’t know what it means
so I flip the pages and find it.

Once its found I have to write it down.
Sleep won’t welcome my anvil head,
resting in the crook of my collarbones
until my mind is no longer responsible
for remembering.

I have a list for instances like this
where words are alphabetised and defined.
I find a blade to carve
it onto my arm
or leg or hip or back.
My head holds a to c
and my toes y to z.

Somewhere in between lies
the word I have found,
freshly folding in on itself
another closed book in the series
of my sleep-deprived nights.
Now my heavy head
is on my desk,
the light forgotten,
the bed lost.

In the morning I will wake
as if a minute ago
I’d opened the dictionary
which my head substituted
for a pillow.